George albert lyon



G. A. LYON.

RESIUENT BUFFER;

APPLICATION FILED SEPT-30. x921. RENEWED SEPT. 5.1922.

\ 1,436,996, Patented-Nov. 28,

I INVENTOR.

z ATTORN'EY. 7

Patented Nov. 28, 1922.

GEORGE ALBERT LYON, OF IPHILADELPI'IIA, PENNSYLVANIA. A

RESILIEN'I BUFFER.

Application filed September 30, 1921, Serial No. 504,395.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, GEORGE ALBERT LYON, a citizen of the United States, and resident of Philadelphia, county of Philadelphia, State of Pennsylvania, have made a certain new and useful Invention Relating to Resilient Buffers, of which the following is a speclfication taken in connection with ac companying drawing.

This invention relates especially to spring steel strip or resilient buffers or bumpers for automobiles or other vehicles in which further resilience is given the buffer front by forming at any suitable places therein one or more edgewise bends in the spring strips; and preferably adjacent the ends of the buffer the resilient strips or members are bent edgewise into loops which are arranged in substantially the same vertical plane. In this way the front strips or impact receiving members of the buffer, which may, if desired, be of tempered spring steel construction may also be vertically displaced with respect to the attaching strips or members which may be bent inward and rearward from the end loops. These edgewise bent end loops may be arranged so as to be either above or below the central buffer front or front strips or, if desired, these front strips may be substantially in line with the central part of the end loops in some cases.

In the accompanying drawing showing in a somewhat diagrammatic way various illustrative embodiments of this invention Fig. 1 is a perspective view showing one form of buffer.

Fig. 2 is a front view thereof, and

Figs. 3 and 4 are perspective views showing other illustrative constructions.

The strips or members of which these buffers are composed may be of any suitable size and material, and for ordinary automobiles, tempered spring steel strip about two to three inches wide and one-quarter to three-eighths of an inch thick or so is advantageous in most cases. Where the buffer members are bent up from spring steel strip of this general character the edges of the strip may be rolled with beveled or rounded corners if desired which somewhat facilitates the finishing operations.

In the form of buffer shown in Fig. 1 the front strip or impact receiving member 1 may be substantially straight throughout the central part of the buffer between the auto mobile frames, and may even be carried out in about the same straight line to a point adj acent the end of the buffer where the strip is preferably bent edgewise over a suitable form to produce the end loop 7 which if de sired may be in substantially the same vertical plane as the front strip in some cases. In this way the end 6 of the strip, which may be bent backward and inward to form an attaching strip or member to be secured to the automobile frame in any suitable way is vertically displaced several inches at least with respect to the front strips, which is advantageous in the case of many automobiles with low hung frames. The other strip may be similarly shaped and may comprise a substantially straight front strip or impact receiving member 2 overlapping the strip 1 between their ends 4: and 8 and adjustably or otherwise connected as by the clips 9, 10 to hold these strips in substantially rigid vertical alignment. The strip 2 may be bent edgewise adjacent the buffer end to form the end loop 3 and the strip end 5 may be bent inward and backward to form an attaching member of the same general character as on the other side of the buffer. In this way it is easy to carry the front strip up five or six inches or more above the attaching members as is indicated in 2, and furthermore by edge bending the end loops these parts may easily be brought sufficiently into the same plane so that the grinding and polishing of the strips is very considerably facilitated throughout the front portions or faces of the strips where it is usual to nickel-plate them. It is, of course,possible to form these buffer units by stamping or cutting them out of sheet steel of suitable thickness, in which case the original plate may have some such width as is indicated in Fig. 2. Or, if desired, a narrower blank may be employed and after cutting or slitting out the strips and preferably somewhat rounding the inner side of the end loop, these end loop portions may be forced outward when the metal is heated so as to considerably increase the vertical displacement between the two connected strips or buffer members.

Fig. 3 shows another form of buffer in which the end loop 12 is carried up considerably above the connected front strip or member 15 by means of the additional bends 13, 1 1 which are formed in this strip adjacent the end loop; In this way the buffer front Renewed September 5, 1922. Serial No. 586,357.

strips need be no more than a couple of inches or so above the integral or otherwise connected attaching member 11. The other buffer strip may be similarly formed with its attaching member 17 preferably integral with the edgewise bent end loop 18 and adjacent vertically bent portions 19, 2O connecting with the front strip 21. These front strips which may be substantially straight or forwardly curved in some cases, may be held in reinforcing overlapping position by the clips or connecting devices 22, preferably adjacent the ends 16 of these strips. This construction is of particular advantage with some types of automobiles where the headlights are carried on or built into the mud guards, since the end loopsextend upward sufficiently adjacent the lamps so as to give considerable additional protection thereto.

Fig. 4 shows still another illustrative construction in which the edgcwise bent end loops, 23, 31 are arranged to project both above and below the connected front strips or impact receiving members 27, 28 which may be adj ustably or otherwise connected by the clips 22. In this case vertical bends 24, 25 of substantially symmetrical character may be formed on each side of the end loops so that with the additional bend 26 merging into the straight front strip this buffer member is given the desired shape. The other strip adjustably or otherwise secured thereto may have the overlapping front strip 28 and the integrally connected attaching member 30 joined by the vertically bent end loop 31 and the generally similar bends 32, 33 and 34.

This invention has been described in connection with a number of embodiments,

forms, proportions, parts, arrangements, ma-

terials, methods of manufacture, connection and use, to the details of which disclosure the invention is not of course to be limited, since what is claimed as new and what is desired to be secured by Letters Patent is set forth in the appended claims:

1. The automobile buflt'er formed of a plurality of substantially flat spring steel strips and comprising a reinforced substantially horizontal buffer front and connected edgewise bent end loops in substantially the same vertical plane as the buffer front and resilient attaching strips integrally connected with said end loops and vertically displaced with respect to the buffer front and opposite portion of the end loop.

2. The automobile buffer formed of a plurality of spring steel strips and comprising a reinforced substantially horizontal buffer front and connected edgewise bent end loops in substantially the same vertical plane and resilient attaching strips integrally connected with said end loops and vertically dis-- placed with respect to the buffer front.

3.' The aiitor'nobile buffer formed of a plurality of substantially fiat spring steel. strips and comprising a reinforced buffer front and connected edgewise bent end loops in substantially the same vertical plane and extending considerably above said buffer front, and resilient attaching members connected to said end loops and vertically displaced with respect to the buffer front.

4:. The automobile buffer formed of a plurality of spring steel strips and comprising a buffer front and connected edgewise bent end loops in substantially the same vertical plane and extending considerably above the said buffer front, and attaching members connected to said end loops.

5. The automobile buffer formed of spring steel strip and comprising a reinforced buffer front and connected edgewise bent end loops in substantially the same vertical plane and resilient attaching members connected to said end loops.

6. The automobile buffer formed of spring steel strip and comprising a bufier front and connected edgewise bent end loops and attaching members connected to said end loops.

7. The automobile bufi'er formed of spring steel strip and having a multiple strip buffer front comprising a resilient connected edgewise bent loop in substantially the same vertical plane and resilient attaching members connected with said buffer front.

8. The automobile buffer formed of spring steel. strip and having a buffer front comprising a resilient connected edgewise bent loop.

9. The resilient automobile buffer formed of a pair of similar spring steel strips, each having a substantially straight front impact receiving strip and connected edgewise bent end loop, the other end of the strip adj acent saidend loop being bent inward and rearward to form an attaching member considerably displaced vertically from the connected front strip.

10. The resilient automobile buffer formed of a pair of similar spring steel strips, each having a front impact receiving strip and connected edgewise bent end loop, the other end of the strip adjacent said end loop forming an attaching member.

11..The resilient automobile buffer comprising a pair of spring steel members, each having a front impact receiving strip and connected edgewise bent end loop substantially tangent thereto and an integrally connectcd attaching member considerably displaced vertically from the connected front strip.

12. The resilient automobile bufi'er comprising a pair of spring steel members, each having a front impact receiving strip and connected edgewise bent end loop substantially tangent thereto.

13. The automobile b'ufier comprising a buffer front formed of resilient substantially flat steel strip and having edgewise bent end loops forming the lateral ends of the buffer front to effect the vertical displacement of the adjacent portions of the buffer front and steel strip attaching mem-' bers connected to said buffer front and adapted to support the same from an automobile.

14. The automobile buffer comprising a buffer front formed of steel strip and having edgewise bent loops adjacent the lateral ends of the buffer front to effect the vertical displacement of the adjacent portions of the buffer front and attaching members connected to said buffer front and adapted to support the same from an automobile.

15. The automobile buffer comprising arecnforced multiple strip buffer front having edgewise bent loops adjacent the lateral ends of the buffer front to effect the vertical displacement of the adjacent portions of the buffer front.

16. The automobile buffer comprising a buffer front formed of steel strip and having an edgewise bend adjacent each'lateral. end of the buffer front to effect the vertical displacement of the adjacent portions of the buffer front with respect to the connected attaching member extending rearward from said vertical bend.

17. The automobile buffer comprising a buffer front formed of steel strip and having edgewise bends adjacent the lateral ends of the buffer front to effect the vertical displacement of the adjacent portions of the buffer front with respect to the connected attaching members extending rearward from said buffer front.

GEORGE ALBERT LYON. 

